Aerial drone photos of the thriving downtown of Hendersonville, NC. This mountain town, just south of Asheville, has so many great festivals, restaurants and businesses.
These photos can be licensed and purchased but may not be used without permission. Thanks!
A Nikon Z 7ii with a Nikon Z 50mm 1.8 S lens / photo taken with a Nikon Z 6ii with a Nikon 45mm 2.8 D tilt shift
Hello, Nikon Z 7ii. In an attempt to blog and post more images this is just a post to say that I am back shooting on Nikon! I switched from Nikon dSLRs to Canon mirrorless in the summer of 2019. While I enjoyed mixing things up and shooting with a different system, I don’t feel like I was ever fully comfortable (or maybe compatible?) shooting with Canon. The RF lenses are amazing (I’ll miss the Canon RF 50mm f/1.2) but I was always secretly pining for Nikon — it’s intuitiveness, colors and lenses. I was also disappointed that Adobe Lightroom did not release a camera matching profile for the Canon R6 (they did for the Canon R). Because of this I always struggled getting skin tones just right with the R6, and it was ANNOYING. In the end I decided I prefer Nikon’s raw files anyway. I literally made a pros and cons list for switching from Canon back to Nikon. This isn’t an extensive list of why you should also switch. Many of these are just personal preferences because I shot with Nikon from 2006-2019.
Pros for Switching to Nikon
I prefer Nikon files
The awesome 24mm 1.4 G! (I ended up buying the Nikon Z 24mm 1.8 S)
Won’t really lose money switching
Z 6ii slightly more megapixels than Canon R6
Still have the Nikon tilt shift lens
Top deck display (the little square screen on top)
Prefer Nikon flashes
On button location easily accessible near aperture dial
Cons of switching to Nikon
Pain to switch systems
Multiexposure output is only JPG on Nikon Z 6ii and Z 7ii (why?!)
Tilt screen on R6 is awesome
Might take time adjusting back to Nikon (but maybe not)
Z lenses a little longer in length
Mostly used to shooting Canon at this point
I will miss 1.2 aperture on the 50mm RF
Here are a few of my favorite photos that Kristi and I took for HCPED’s 2016 annual report. The awesome design, layout, and overlay illustrations are by Farmhouse Graphics. The last two images are spreads she created with the photos. I love how it all came together.
The locations in this post include Sierra Nevada Brewery, Gaia Herbs, GF Linamar, and the French Broad River. We went out on several different days to capture these locations with natural light, usually at sunset. Western North Carolina has some of the most beautiful skies at sunset so we took advantage of this and delivered vibrant photography for the annual report. A few of these photos were also featured in Capital at Play magazine.
All of the images were taken with Nikon. Here is some of the camera gear used for these photos:
My favorite wide angle lens to shoot with is the Nikon 24mm f/1.4G
The photo samples in this review were all taken with the Nikon 20mm 1.8 using a Nikon D750
What I use it for: travel, landscapes, architecture, commercial, and weddings (sparingly)
Here is a size comparison between the Nikon 24mm 1.4 G, Nikon 20mm 1.8 G (middle), and Nikon 24-70mm 2.8G
If you find my review & photo samples helpful, please consider buying your Nikon gear through one of the links throughout the post:
• Lightweight
• Excellent image quality
• Sharpness. It’s sharp. Maybe not Daaamn, Daniel sharp but if you hit the focus just right, I see no reason at all to complain about it. And of course it depends on proximity to your subject. If you zoom into a tree 300 feet away it’s not going to be as razor sharp as a person’s eyeball 2 feet away. I included a couple 100% zoomed in crops below.
• Well balanced on a D750
• Auto-focus: works well, probably hits focus more accurately than the Nikon 24mm 1.4
• f/1.8 aperture – came in handy for a couple portraits in the dark when I had no tripod and didn’t want to boost my ISO to 3200+ (which I’m okay with doing, but sometimes I prefer less grain)
• Chromatic aberation: not a problem with this lens. Check out the photo of the Japanese magnolia tree. I didn’t apply remove chromatic aberration or defringe in Adobe Lightroom
• You can get really close to your subject with this lens — like 4 inches away close. I certainly didn’t buy the lens for this reason but it’s nice to know in case you want to try some crazy wide close-up stuff.
• Price: seems about right for what you get. But when there is a Nikon rebate on this lens, it’ll be an excellent price.
• Lens flare (lack of). I like lens flare occasionally and it was difficult getting any with the 20mm 1.8. But that’s ok, because I can always use the 24mm 1.4 or 24-70mm for flare. And if you hate lens flare then this will be a positive thing for you.
• Bokeh: it’s not a 50mm so why would you care about bokeh on 20mm lens? Because it’s f/1.8 and you can get really close to your subject. And the bokeh looks good!
• Vignetting: vignetting on the corners didn’t bother me. Also the quality at the corners at lower apertures was just fine. Once you go above f/2.8 there are really no quality issues with the corners. This photo was f/2.0 and I didn’t apply vignette in post or add any profile correction.
• Honestly there isn’t much I didn’t like. It doesn’t quite have that magical look that the 24mm 1.4 has, but for less than half the price I wasn’t expecting it to.
• It’s that plastic casing that the other 1.8 G lenses have. However, this makes it more lightweight.
• No VR / vibration reduction. Again, comes down to price. How much more would it have been with VR? I was able to do handheld at 1/8 second if I was careful.
4.5 out of 5 stars. It’s a quality wide angle lens at a good price point. It is excellent in environments you’d except a wide angle to be, but it can even be good for certain portraits. If you think 24mm is too wide for portraits, obviously 20mm isn’t gonna do it for you. I was not planning to use it for this but actually got a couple neat shots (here is one) that didn’t look weird or distorted at all. Also I hate taking selfies but when you want a picture of you and your wife at The Colosseum and don’t want to hand your camera to a stranger, this lens is pretty nice. It doesn’t even really give you Stretch Armstrong arms. I’ll be hanging on to this fantastic lens until Nikon or Sigma releases an even wider prime. Perhaps an 18mm f/2.0?
What do you think of the Nikon 20mm f/1.8 G? Feel free to leave comments or questions on this post.
Over the weekend I photographed the Amadeus Asheville festival put on by Daniel Meyer and the Asheville Symphony. Amadeus
Check out the March 2015 issue of Our State which includes an Asheville, NC photo of mine on page 68.
Equipment I used to take the Asheville photo: Nikon D4 & Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8.
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